Help Mohammed – send an email or make a phone call to your Senator or Congressperson and asking them to support Mohammed’s release. Ask them to call the State Department and the Embassy — or you can call them directly:

State department Egypt desk Larry Cohen (202) 647 4680, cohenle@state.gov
American Embassy Egypt political officer Ed White, +2 012 219 1768, WhiteEA@state.gov

Fax or email the Egyptian interior minister, the one who ordered Mohammed’s detention:

His Excellency Habib al-Adly
Interior Minister
Al-Sheikh Rihan St.
Bab Al-Louk, Al-Tahrir
Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt
Moi1@idsc.gov.eg
Fax: 002 022 579-2031

What to say:

Mohammed Maree (pronouned mar-EYE) is an Egyptian student journalist in prison in Egypt for helping an American journalist. James Buck, a UC Berkeley graduate journalism student was detained in Egypt for taking photos at a protest (you may have seen an article about how Twitter helped him get help: http://tinyurl.com/5cq7zs , http://del.icio.us/jamesbuck/jamesbuck). UC and the US embassy helped him get out within 24 hours, but his Egyptian translator Mohammed, is still in jail. He has been on hunger strike twice, close to death, and has told his lawyers he was tortured by electric shock, a common method in Egyptian prisons.

Why care about an Egyptian prisoner?

- He was arrested because he worked for an American, and since he had help from his government, they took their anger at the American out on them.
- He was arrested for doing journalism, and protecting journalism around the world is a vital guarantor of freedom
- Egypt is the 2nd largest recipient of US foreign aid! This aid was, until recently, contingent upon human rights improvements. Condolezza Rice lifted Congress’s conditions on the aid.
- President Bush recently addressed Egypt and the Middle East, saying “America is deeply concerned about the plight of political prisoners in this region, as well as democratic activists who are intimidated or repressed, newspapers and civil society organization that are shut down and dissidents whose voices are stifled.”
- Mohammed is a 23 year old student whose family is devastated. He’s been tortured, humiliated, beaten, and barred from taking his university exams.

Egypt has a widely-criticized human rights record: http://tinyurl.com/4wfqfs
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called for his release: http://tinyurl.com/3hgase

We’re so close!! Please push now and help Mohammed go home to his family

Threatened journalists and bloggers